20 Dead, 100 Injured in Las Vegas Shooting

The Las Vegas shooter is down. There was only one shooter. There were no bombs at other hotels. 20 people are dead and up to one hundred are injured.

The shooter was a local resident. Police say he died. He was shooting from a room on the 32ndfloor of the Mandalay Bay. Police are looking for his companion, Mari Lou Daniely or Danelly, a 4'11" Asian female.

Police also searched two vehicles, associated with the shooter:a Hyundai Tucson Nevada/114B40 and a Chrysler Pacifica Nevada/79D401.

the story about the 'good guys without guns' trying to break into police cars to get them? Police had to divert their response to the injured to protect their own weapons. They were politely assuming that the people were trying to help.

but at least I got to wake up, and at least my family is intact, so whatever emotions I may be feeling pale in comparison to what the families of those killed or injured are dealing with.

I guess we don't yet know why, but it once again feels like we have much more to fear from white people living within our borders than from brown ones trying to get here. No info on his religious affiliation, but I'm guessing he's not Muslim.

Someone at such a vulnerable point has no defense against the media, and they not only know that, they take full advantage of it.

At this point, we don't need a platoon of media all with the rank of Captain Obvious to intrude on the personal pain and shock of the shooter's relatives; maybe they should be asking us how we feel, what we think, because I could give them an earful - as could most of us here.

What kind of country are we that we want to make it harder for people to vote than to buy and own weapons? Where we don't want mental health issues to get in the way of someone's 2nd Amendment rights? Where subsidies for Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice (thank you SNL) probably far surpass what we're willing to pay for mental health care?

Yeah, I'd like some answers, and I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't have any that make sense.

b@stard. I cannot stand him. I spent part of the day watching coverage of the shooting on BBC and France 24. Journalists on both networks are incredulous at the easy gun access in the US and at the fact that we seem to just accept that mass murder is a regular occurrence in our lives.

Year-to-date there have been 273 mass shootings in the US this year. That is pretty darn close to one a day.

Although, I do believe he thinks he's the important and serious journalist, and it irks me that he gets to elbow out of the room the regular MSNBC hosts.

I'm not sure we ever know anyone - even family - as well as we think we do, and sadly, I think it's not uncommon for people to have no idea someone they know could do what this guy did. Maybe because we don't want to know it it think it or suspect it.

All I know is that this stuff has got to stop. We have to stop being willing to accept these kinds of deaths as normal and just part of the cost of preserving the ammosexuals' distorted perception of 2nd Amendment freedoms.

"had to know", I have a sibling who lives in a different part of the country than I. I have no idea what that sibling does or does not have in their home. For all I know the garage is filled with thousands of softballs. Such stupid commentary on TV news. A symptom or a cause of the dumbing down of our national discourse. You be the judge.

Could have gone into his house, locked the door, and taken the phone off the hook. But before taking the phone off the hook, if the reporters were swarming in his yard, he could have called the police and told them he had a bunch of trespassers (although I realize that the police would be reluctant to clear away the reporters).
Years ago, we had a neighbor who shot and killed another neighbor. We didn't have the swarms that the poor brother did, but we did have a few local reporters trying to get a comment from me. I looked at them coldly, and said "No comment. Get off of my property."
Geez, they are like vultures.

"are praying for the day evil is banished." Scalise and his wife are praying for the victims.

Thoughts and prayers it is...since it is always too soon to talk about anything other than the tragic reality that banishing evil is more likely than regulating guns and limiting high capacity magazines. In this respect, Trump is presidential---Republican style presidential.

is a leader in the silencer bill (the hearing protection act). Guess hunters need to sneak up on the deer to bag them. And, firing can be hard on the ears.

Hillary Clinton: "the crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer which the NRA wants to make make easier to get." Don't know if the modern technology has permitted more than three shots with a silencer, but it something to work on.

by someone who has an ability to not reflexively say stupid things (so we also know it wasn't Stephen Miller), but no one should take this as a sign that Trump is closer to being presidential - he's not; I'd be willing to bet he has no idea what he read from the teleprompter, and has already forgotten it.

Wednesday will be the day he says the stupid things, because he won't be tied to a teleprompter.

Following on, of course, from tomorrow's visit to Puerto Rico, which should be quite the event.

I can say that I, for one, am sick of this thoughts-and-prayers thing as the politicians' default setting for how we deal with the constancy of mass shootings, among other things.

Prayer does not make me content with continuing to see innocent people sacrificed - literally - on the altar of the 2nd Amendment, which is apparently the one and only Amendment for which speaking the words "common-sense regulation" is a declaration of war.

I have already prayed for these politicians and lobbyists to come to their senses. I have already reflected on the grief and despair visited on too many families for absolutely no good or conscionable reason.

We don't have time to keep having these moments of silence, not least because my mouth may not be making sounds, but I can assure you my brain is screaming profanity-laced curses at these selfish, sanctimonious asshats.

I'm at the point where I think that if people want guns, they need to do so under the auspices of a well-regulated government militia and be required to house their weapons under the lock, key and supervision of a secure government armory, and only able to use their weapons for on-site training and target practice or in the event the US is attacked by a foreign power.

is that the folks who claim to be on the most intimate terms with the almighty creator of the universe are, more often than not, the same people soiling themselves over the possibility of having their guns taken away.

But hey, if 20 first graders in Newtown, CT getting cut to pieces with semiautomatic weapon fire wasn't enough to move elected officials to action, then the knowledge that one late-middle aged male can shoot nearly 600 people all by himself over the course of a few minutes and kill 59 of them is simply the price we have to pay 'cause, y'know, freedom, y'all.

But here's the thing. America is the only wealthy country not subjected to endemic civil conflict or invasion which regularly endures these sorts of mass firearms massacres. We're the only place in the western world where anything remotely like this happens not just occasionally but on a regularly recurring basis. Are we okay with that? Because speaking for myself only, I'm certainly not.

I'll tell you one thing, though, that I'll do personally as both a Democrat and a party official. As of today, I will not support ANY Democratic legislative or congressional candidate who takes money from the NRA.

I don't care if you're otherwise great on women's rights or children's education or the environment or whatever. If you as a candidate take money from an NRA gun lobby that advocates for the unfettered right of domestic anarchists to amass potent arsenals of deadly weaponry, at the ultimate expense of public safety and everyone else's own collective peace of mind, you're not only off my list, I'll actively work against you.

FACT: More Americans died in Las Vegas last night at the hands of one gun-toting crackpot (59), than died during the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the Revolutionary War at the hands of an entire British infantry regiment (49). That should be unacceptable. But it won't be 'cause, y'know, freedom, y'all.

It is culture. Nothing will change until we can change the culture of the US. And that could take a generation. We can't legislate this problem away. I've already read the typical calls for more background checks. In this specific incident, it would have made no difference. This was a guy with no criminal record, no mental health history, by all indications his guns were all purchased legally.

And what do we do with the millions of guns already in the hands of Americans? Australia implemented a full gun ban after a shootout between the Bandidos and Comancheros. But it also came with a culture change.

Our history and entertainment is full of gunslingers from the old west to modern TV and movies. How do you get change with that being so pervasive.

My own views have changed over time. At one time I belonged to the NRA and was a full 2nd Amendment rights guy with no conditions. I owned an assault rifle about a month once. Realized it was silly, and sold it. I quit the NRA years ago. Mostly thanks to Wayne LaPierre and nearly daily deluge of mail begging for a donation.

That said, I own guns. I have all my adult life. Not a lot. But more than 2. I'm a homeowner, am older, now physically handicapped to a degree, so a handgun is a bit of an equalizer. I take road trips to casinos. Carry a lot of cash sometimes. I always have a handgun in those instances. So I am not anti gun.

But I do know what is happening is wrong. And it has to change. Somehow, we have to change the conversation and above all, change the culture that embraces firearms so easily.

Our own police shoot us down in the streets. That has become their go to solution. That feeds this gun culture.

i would say anyone who thinks an Australia style round up is remotely possible in this country is smoking something i want.

never happen. so that means even if we by some miracle banned the sale of all guns iits said there are roughly 300 million guns already out there.

one thing that seems possible to me is regulating the sale of ammunition. you or i do not need tens of thousands of rounds to protect the homestead. as this guy had yesterday. not only the number but the type should be regulated.

i know people can make their own but that can also be regulated by the supplies needed and it seems like it might be useful in tracking any misused.

if i cant buy sudafed more than one box at a time and then only at a drug store where i am known, dont fu@king tell me ammo sales cant be regulated.

"** is not remotely possible in this country." ** could be free health care, flat tax, rational way of choosing presidents, parliamentary system, non interventionist foreign policy, gun roundup/control, inquisitorial rather that adversarial legal proceedings, etc, etc. Can anybody recommend a book which would explain to me why the US insists on being the exception to what is considered normal in the rest of the developed world?

The bravery of others. It won't be the time to talk about this epidemic and remedies. But it CAN BE used as another opportunity to celebrate the bravery of Americans. Without all of these mass shooting how would we ever grasp how brave our fellow Americans are?

seems to me to be more along the lines of "things that seem like the right thing to do when faced with danger to one's self and other members of the human race."

But, okay, fine: let's call it bravery. Does that now make those who just ran for cover cowards? Were they wrong to not place themselves in more danger by tending to the wounded or shepherding others to some kind of safety? I don't think, at the time, people even knew where the shots were coming from, if there was more than one shooter, whether someone in the crowd was doing this - so how do you protect yourself, much less others, under those conditions?

Am preparing to want to stick needles in my ears as Trump readies some kind of statement for the country. "Warmest condolences" doesn't seem to really hit the mark - at least not for me - so we'll see what else he has to say.

Maybe there's nothing he could say that would satisfy me, but for the love of God, doesn't he have someone with the rudimentary ability to write words that truly aim to heal?

I'm not sure at this point that there's anyone of competence in the administration.

We couldn't make decisions about gun laws because we're too grief stricken and in shock. The best decisions aren't made in those emotional states. Each shooting does that to people though, there is never trauma free swathes of time to recover in and then be told we can now make sensible choices.

So "news" jumps to acts of bravery and courage because the audience is numb to other information. We must not go there until we've grieved but the grief never ends.

only reduces the sound of a high powered rifle to about what a jack hammer makes. The ones you see in the movies that make no noise at all or a quiet Pfffft sound are fictional creations of sound technicians.

In any case, anyone intent could simply make one. It is a tube full of baffels, no exotic tooling required. Some do it your self ones have been made from automotive oil filters. Do you think background checks on oil filters make sense if it saves just one life?

I just did. What you will get is a buttload of NRA propaganda. But what you should do is read and/or watch some of it. I just did. They almost always have "the paragraph".

This paragraph.

Even if real world bad guys realized that a suppressed .22 caliber AR or handgun is pretty damn quiet and did use a suppressed firearm in the commission of a crime, Uncle Sam's suppressor sales related fees, paperwork and delay are a 2A-prohibited infringement on Americans' right to keep and bear arms.

They are very heavy, that will help make up for the power lost in noise suppression. The legislation they are going to pass will make the next massacre quiet and the munitions just as deadly...bullets ripping easily through more than one body.

All the gun nuts love to parse though. On Twitter they get pretty upset when individuals tweet that they thought owning a fully automatic weapon was illegal in the US and you tell them it isn't in certain places. One of those places is Nevada, and 1,000s of fully automatic rifles are owned by individuals in Nevada.

On Twitter they get pretty upset when individuals tweet that they thought owning a fully automatic weapon was illegal in the US and you tell them it isn't in certain places.

automatic weapons require a special Federal license. according to his brother, he was a multimillionaire so i suppose it's possible he had a Federal license and purchased several very expensive 'collector items.'

but it seems more likely that he used a device to facilitate rapid fire. if that is the case, there should be a push - at this time - to outlaw those devices. in my opinion.

from what i read, you can legally buy a device to facilitate rapid fire. you cannot legally buy a kit to convert a rifle to fully automatic (though the distinction is irrelevant if you are being fired upon).

thus, the focus should be on getting a Federal law passed that outlaws those devices that facilitate rapid fire.

misunderstanding the term "can't." I think you mean "cannot lawfully," which is a possible meaning of the term (on that basis, I signaled agreement with your comment), but without adding that adverb, just saying "can't" could readily be taken to mean "cannot physically," that is, "it is impossible to." That's the basis on which I think ChuckO is disagreeing with you.

it is impossible to buy a kit to convert a rifle to fully automatic from a retail gun store. because there is no such commercially available kit as the manufacture and sale of such a kit would be a Federal crime.

i thought 'legally' and 'lawfully' had to do with criminal v civil penalties but i must be mistaken.

You can legally buy the parts that will convert a semi auto to full auto. They are available at gunshops, gun shows and mail order from Cheaper Than Dirt, Ft Worth, TX. There are youtube videos available to show you how to do it. The parts can also be easily fabricated by a gunsmith or even someone1 with access to machine tools. No mafia, no thugs needed. Your knowledge of gun culture seems to stem from TV and movies. I lived it. I have a past life that included 1%er motorcycle clubs and dabbling in the "game". I have since evolved somewhat. But I remember from whence I came.

Highly skilled at modification. Some work with special forces and help them. I'm certain they've jumped through a 1,000 hoops and would never do anything overtly illegal. But some people are very mechanically gifted and someone with the money can get what they want.

Nevada has those crazy auto rifle ranges too, remember the little girl who lost control of the auto and accidentally shot the instructor in the head?

Let's see. I grew up on military bases. I served in the US Navy. One of my oldest friends owns a gun shop. I owned my first rifle at 14. I purchased my first handgun 40 years ago. When my father died, he left behind a gun safe with 56 rifles and pistols. Which I researched, catalogued and disposed of. Now, who do you suppose knows a bit more about firearms, you or me?

by Chuck0
Now, who do you suppose knows a bit more about firearms, you or me?

actually, i am familiar with machine guns.

i was brought to an outdoor firing-range, given a gun safety course, shown how to fire a pistol and a rifle, attended a demonstration of several different machine guns, and was encouraged to fire a fully automatic Uzi (i declined the offer). i am hardly naïve on this issue.

on a state-specific basis? The virtual prohibition of fully automatic weapons (through restrictive and prohibitive federal licensing) is a federal law. That wouldn't be subject to state override on any basis that I can think of.

Who was a retired law enforcement officer, and selling guns to supplement his income. He had been injured during a high speed chase. He had some brain damage from it. He was a history wiz, and he was sent back to school to be credentialed to teach history. Colorado Springs college even hired him, but he had some anger issues show up when dealing with students.

He was dear to us, and sadly passed away fairly recently after a battle with cancer. He almost talked us into buying a Barrett in 2000. They are also grandfathered in under the ban.

It was from Ray though that I learned about the gun sales phenom whenever a Democratic President is elected. He said Bill Clinton made him a slew of money. George W Bush had been elected though and Ray was helping family members obtain these grandfathered weapons as an investment because suddenly they weren't worth so much to some of their owners.

We aren't gun people. But there was no denying that the worth of the weapon would only increase. The grandfathered in weapons available to collectors have often not even been touched yet. They are immersed in a storage oil so they remain in pristine condition.

At that point in time it would have been a good investment, and we almost did it. But at the end of the day we decided not to. The weapons have only one purpose, to kill people.

Some of my family members made those investments though. Going through the motions didn't seem that prohibitive to me. The only thing prohibitive that I could see was the cost.

And my anger management challenged family member didn't have problems obtaining grandfathered weapons. Being past law enforcement certainly weighed in his favor.

I live around people who go through the motions all the time though to obtain security clearances, flight exams, urine tests, and still some of them that pass make you wonder. And many of these passing gun owners still talk paranoid delusions about the black helicopter people coming to get their guns even though they are the black helicopter people.

issue is that the Fed Gvt definition of "armor piercing" is not based on an ammo's actual capabilities, but rather on the physical composition of the ammo itself and whether or not it's intended for use in pistols.

A brick can pierce armor if you throw it fast enough.

Not sure what "new armor piercing" you are talking about?

Are you are talking about the "green tip" ammo that has been in the news the past couple years, and has been legally bought and sold for almost 20 years now?

The reason that ammo's been a topic lately is because manufacturers are now making pistols that fire that ammo, and according to some, that makes it fall under the Fed Gvt definition of "armor piercing."

imo so much of this conversation it coming from people who know few or any hunters.

i am not a hunter either. i could tell some funny (to me) stories about my adolescence when i was finally forced to go hunting because it was expected of me and how they regretted it and never bothered me again about it.

but i know hunters. they are not evil. they mostly eat what they kill. i dont have a problem with it even if i choose to get my meat from the supermarket the cowards way.

and another admission. i recently purchased a gun. there was an odd incident very soon after i moved into this house a couple of months ago. the house is very secluded and after discussing it with family and law enforcement (the same people in some but not all cases) i got a handgun.

I have had a 22 caliber, a 44 and a 357. I don't have any now. But if I want to buy another one, I don't want anyone telling me I can't.

The second amendment is one away from the fourth (the third amendment is obsolete and doesn't count)-- never give up a constitutional right, it will make it easier for the government to take away the next one.

We are not talking about giving up a constitutional right. We are talking about giving limits to a right. Because EVERY right in the bill of rights have reasonable limits.
You can't libel a person. You cant perform human sacrifices in the name of religion. And you do a simple background check to make sure a lunatic or evil person gets a gun. None of these limits are an enemy to constitutional rights.

1. a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full time only in emergencies.

a body of citizen soldiers as distinguished from professional soldiers.

all able-bodied males considered by law eligible for military service.

a body of citizens organized in a paramilitary group and typically regarding themselves as defenders of individual rights against the presumed interference of the federal government.

I have always thought that the language of the amendment was intended to ensure that, should the government require the services of its citizens to defend against attack, those citizens would have arms at their disposal for that purpose in their capacity as members of the militia.

Otherwise, why even mention a "well-regulated militia?" If it's meant to be an absolute right, why doesn't the amendment say, plainly and clearly, with no qualifiers, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed?"

We don't have a government militia. If you want to be a citizen soldier, you join the National Guard. In my opinion, if you want a weapon intended for only one purpose - killing people - then join the National Guard, or other branch of the military, and be assured that if called to duty, a weapon will be made available to you, housed under secure conditions and not stored in the back of your bedroom closet or in a safe in your garage.

It's long past time to consider that someone's right to own a weapon cannot and must not take precedence over my - or anyone's - right to move freely about the country - go to school, to a movie, to a concert, to a restaurant, to walk down the street - without fear of being shot to death by someone with poor impulse control and more testosterone than common sense.

Really, I still scratch my head in wonderment over the fact that I somehow made it to 59 without ever once, even for a second, wishing I had a gun. I guess I must've had a charmed life all this time without ever fully appreciating it.

to "keep and bear arms" cannot be more absolute by virtue of the Second Amendment's "shall not be infringed" language than is "the freedom of speech" or "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" about which the First Amendment commands that "Congress shall make no law abridging ..." Reasonable regulation which does not infringe or abridge the right when exercised for its intended purpose is allowable under all but the most extreme minority theories of constitutional interpretation.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

How does that language not have some purposeful meaning?

I have to think this has come up a time or two, and perhaps you have some insight or can point me to a ruling or discussion where it was dealt with.

I guess I'm tired of being treated as if my right to a peaceful and safe life doesn't matter, and I'm even more tired of the attitude that gun violence is just a given, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

I find it more than a little ironic that the same Republicans who voted to ban abortion after 20 weeks and make it a crime, are the same people who think it makes sense for mentally ill people to be able to buy guns.

constitutional law. Read the majority and dissenting opinions in Heller, the landmark, 5-4 Supreme Court case. I tend to agree with the dissenters, but I am not a constitutional historian, nor do I get to vote at the Supreme Court.

highly credentialed experts in legal history, revolutionary era history, and constitutional theory in the 9 years since Heller. And don't even get me started on the power of the states to regulate firearm possession, if it is a form of "liberty" under the 14th Amendment. There is rather persuasive Reconstruction Era history that Congress when it passed the 14th Amendment (and it was ratified by the States) quite explicitly understood it to protect the rights of freedmen to possess firearms for their protection against racist nightriders, etc., since they could not really rely on local law enforcement (in the South, after the Civil War) to protect them.

family that hunts. My observation has been there are basically two types. One is the environmental type that actually is doing mother nature a favor by getting rid of too many deer. The other are the psycho redneck type that I think just like killing something. The ones that have trucks with huge lights on top that will make the deer freeze and they can shoot it quick. I actually have a friend who's father in law killed his own son hunting. The son came through the bushes and his father thought it was a deer and killed him dead. There is a case for people who even hunt not having guns like testing their mental capacity or something.

A .22 short round is going to make much less noise than a .50BMG round. Yes, gun characteristics can make some difference, but the big differentiator is the powder. More powder, bigger boom. More energetic powder, bigger boom. Subsonic rounds use less or lesser powder.

but your article does nothing to dispute the fact that they suppress the sound and they also say that silencers make it harder for the police to locate the murderer. However I know you are fine with mass murders as is every other NRA apologist out there. We've had 273 mass murders so far this year alone and yet nothing has been done. This is the new normal in America. Don't go to an outdoor concert unless you are willing to get shot. Don't go a lot of places unless you are willing to get shot.

He wasn't using a bump stock. He was using fully automatic weapons. I have actually never heard that many rounds shot that quickly on a military gun range by a single shooter.

My husband was told at work that officers in the hallway of the hotel located his room because one of his weapons became so hot from rapid fire that it was smoking and it set the fire alarm in his room off.

God I hope that's a stoopid rumor, because that reality is so morbid. I haven't the heart to listen to the news tonight. I'm done for the day.

I have heard a lot of automatic gunfire
by Militarytracy
He wasn't using a bump stock. He was using fully automatic weapons.

i believe you are mistaken.

i watched the youtube videos that have been posted on this topic and i believe he used one of the various devices legally available to facilitate rapid fire (thus a law needs to be quickly passed that outlaws these devices).

it seems unlikely that he went through the lengthy process of getting a Federal license and made major purchases of 'collector item' weapons without that being public knowledge by this time - the FBI would know immediately if he had a Federal license and we would know unless the FBI was hiding that information.

it seems unlikely that he had the underworld connections (russian mafia, mexican drug cartel, suveren citizen extremists) to purchase or acquire automatic weapons without a Federal license.

my opinion is based on research and articles and reviewing videos of the shooting and of the various devices that can be used with semi-aitomatic rifles.

He most likely NEVER acquired a fully automatic assault rifle. He most likely purchased, legally, a semi automatic rifle. He then, most likely, legally purchased an automatic sear and lower receiver, which, when installed, will convert the semi to full auto. At that point, he may have then had an illegal firearm. Purchasing the parts is legal. Putting them together may be illegal. MT is correct, the report coming from the Mandalay Bay was certainly automatic gunfire.

... on how easy it is to order inexpensive parts to convert certain rifle to fully automatic? Because I did and there are LOTS of them, which I won't link to. The fact is that he had 23 guns in his hotel room. Youtube "expertise" notwithstanding, the claim that he didn't have any automatic rifles (or that he likely didn't) is nothing more than sheer, uninformed speculation.

Most of those cheapo little modifications will allow a shooter to speed up the fire a bit or allow you to burst if you're holding the weapon just right. And the cheap semi automatics have a tinny back note sound when fired.

He had an odd burst at the start, but after that long streams of fire. His pauses did sound odd sometimes too. Was he reloading, did he have different sized magazines? I don't know.

There was a deep base sound finality to the shots though. I've only ever heard that on a military range and using live ammunition. It's unmistakeable. It comes from a very professional weapon, it sounds like death, it sounds like war.

If we find out he wasn't using very expensive fully automatics, they were gunsmith modified expensive semi-automatics. It was an unreal stream of fire.

multiple weapons lined up and ready to fire, and as each ran out of ammunition, just picked up the next one and continued firing.

Why else have so many weapons?

We may never know the "why" of this, but I'm not sure we have to, given that what made it possible is the "how."

I'm still struggling to come to grips with the mind of someone who says these mass shootings are the price we pay for freedom (although I suspect that O'Reilly, who said this, did so not so much because he may really believe it, but because it would draw the spotlight in his direction, something he hasn't "enjoyed" for a while).

How many deaths are enough? How many broken families? I fear we are at the point where, as the numbers rise, and after people get over the initial shock and sadness, they look around and see their lives are still the same, and it's "ho-hum, carry on" time and that's that. It wasn't their child or their spouse, wasn't their friend, so sighs of relief and thanks to the deity of their choosing.

Honestly, I don't want to hear one more person bloviating about the evil Muslims until we do something to end the ongoing terrorism within our own country by mostly broken and hopeless white men with easy access to guns.

To the quality (if we can or should consider superior death dealing a kind of quality) of the weapon(s) he used, firing rapidly makes guns hot. Even the US military has issues taking on a many pronged assault when their guns get too hot and lock up. His weapon(s) didn't lock up, very expensive, very professional. He had set off a smoke detector and kept on firing.

the existence of cameras in the most recent news conference, which I listened to in the car.

I'm almost at the point where I wonder what the purpose is of my caring at all about what's happening, because I know - based on prior events - that nothing is going to change, outside of some other whack job already planning to take out even more people than Paddock.

"As a country," Goldberg said, "we lost our teachable moment." She started talking about the 2012 murder of 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Goldberg said that if people had been shown the autopsy photos of the kids, the gun debate would have been transformed. "The fact that not a single one of those kids was able to be transported to a hospital, tells me that they were not just dead, but really really really really dead. Ten-year-old kids, riddled with bullets, dead as doornails." Her voice rose. She said people have to confront the physical reality of gun violence without the polite filters. "The country won't be ready for it, but that's what needs to happen. That's the only chance at all for this to ever be reversed."

But I agree with Goldberg, if 6 yr olds with their heads blown off did not change this debate in the right direction, it's over.

So - let it be over.
I wonder if it's best to just go back to state level. Like the Rockefeller Gun Laws in NY (admittedly draconian but still...)

Find ways to make it easier for people to move away from DumbF-ckiStan states that have insane gun laws, fracking, no unions, no infrastructure. No health care no schools or hospitals.

Lower the federal tax rates to starve those states. Let them manage on their own and stop sucking the Fed teat as they do now at something like twice the rate of Blue states.
Find ways to ease movement of workers to sane states like NY or CA.

Seriously. Let DumbF-ckiStan starve. These Red states drain the federal tax serve. Screw them. Let them actually be independent like they claim they are and let reality take over.

are you doubling-down on 'automatic weapons' or doubling-down on 'i hate linea'?

the FBI has reported that of the 23 weapons in the hotel suite (including handguns and sniper-rifles with bi-pod stands and high-magification telescopic sights) that 12 were outfitted with bump-stocks to facilitate a rate of fire comparable to fully automatic fire. no mention of true fully automatic weapons.

i will do my due diligence and follow-up on the assertions of this two-day old article despite the fact thst i never get credit for the amount of research that i do and that yman incessantly trolls me.

I'm "doubling down" on facts over uninformed speculation. I'm "doubling down" on the opinions of firearms experts and people who know the actual sound of automatic weapons, over "research" consisting of watching a Youtube video.

But thanks for pointing out the information was available even before your original posts.

i don't get what point other than 'i hate linea' you are trying to make. my point has always and repeatedly been that this is the time to ban bump-stocks and other devices used to facilitate rapid fire.

this is a bit nuanced. but i agree. a ban on bump-stocks and trigger-cranks is a bandaid. as is magazine capacity. but bandaids are all we have.

the second amendment - along with the other expressed rights in the u.s. constitution - are part of the foundational structure of american law and culture. the u.s. already did a 'scary looking' ban which expired in 2004 and which hasn't been renewed in over thirteen years. the trend over the last 10 to 20 years has been states passing more liberal concealed carry laws as well as passing 'stand your ground' and 'castle' laws. this is the popular will in our country and our democracy; not the evil machinations of the NRA. this also dovetails (joins together) why the police in america have an armed response unlike european countries - americans legally walk about with loaded guns in their jacket pockets.

i'm the go-to-girl for outlawing guns japanese style. but realistically, a bump-stock ban is all we get. this isn"t vietnan, there are rules and the second amendnent is one of those rules.

i don't get what point other than 'i hate linea' you are trying to make. my point has always and repeatedly been that this is the time to ban bump-stocks and other devices used to facilitate rapid fire.

... more slowly. I don't "hate Linea". To hate someone, you have to care about their opinion. They have to at least some level of significance to you. But I'll explain it once more, very clearly. Your claim that there were no automatic weapons was nothing more than uninformed, specious speculation. Watching a couple of Youtube videos does not make someone informed, let alone an expert like those cited in many articles pointing to automatic weapons based on the videos of the shooting. This would be true whether your specious speculation turned out to be correct or incorrect, as it was in this case. SOME of the weapons had bump stocks and OTHERS were fully automatic weaponsper the FBI.

Hope that prevents you from misstating my positions on both you and this issue, but given your history, I'm not holding my breath.

Since you won't be specific, all we can assume is that you are referring to the link to a Monday LA Times article that you put up previously.

That link, as you well know, is not a link to something the FBI said, but rather to what the LA Times says Schiff said the FBI said to him on Monday.

Schiff then said, according to your LA Times link, that:

he (Schiff) didn't know if the guns found in the Mandalay Bay Resort room were manufactured to be fully automatic or had been modified.

Well, today is Thursday. And every single news outlet since, including the LA Times, have stated the the guns were modified to bump stock, and none of them have said there were automatic weapons.

Here's an LA Times article from today, Thursday:

Meanwhile, as lawmakers in Washington again took up the issue of gun regulation, the National Rifle Assn. on Thursday called for a government review on the legality of "bump stock" accessories that modify semiautomatic weapons to fire at nearly fully automatic speed. Investigators have said the Las Vegas gunman had 12 such devices outfitted on the weapons he amassed to mount the recent attack.

You are right, this is not fake news:

SOME of the weapons had bump stocks and OTHERS were fully automatic weapons per the FBI.

NONE of these links are directly to the FBI. They are all reported through new outlets, including your unlinked statement about the bump stocks. This is information provided to Schiff in a briefing, unless you think Schiff is lying and the FBI is remaining silent while he just makes it up, which is funny.

On Monday, Schiff was briefed by the FBI. The part you omitted was the relevant portion. I understand why you don't like it, because it proves my point, so I'll help you out:

Investigators found fully automatic guns among multiple weapons in Stephen Paddock's 32nd-floor Las Vegas hotel room, according to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff.

The congressman from Burbank, who received a briefing from FBI officials in Washington on Monday, said he didn't know if the guns found in the Mandalay Bay Resort room were manufactured to be fully automatic or had been modified. Such weapons fire more than one round with each pull of the trigger.

So what the FBI told Schiff was that SOME of the weapons were fully automatic. Not semi-automatics with bump stocks ... fully automatic guns.

Then, it was reported the next day that SOME of the guns were equipped with bump stocks. More precisely, 12 of the 23 guns. Since you provided no links while demanding same, we'll assume the quote is accurate and the source is a journalist repeating something they were told by the FBI or something their source was told by the FBI. But we'll go with "according to the FBI", since you have no problem when Linea states it.

Well, today is Thursday. And every single news outlet since, including the LA Times, have stated the the guns were modified to bump stock, and none of them have said there were automatic weapons.

No. What they actually reported was that SOME of the guns were modified to bump stock. Assuming your previous number is correct (12), that would leave 11 guns that were NOT bump stock guns. What the media reports DON'T do is contradict what the FBI told Schiff on Monday - that SOME of the guns were fully automatic - not "bump stock" guns.

MAYBE he bought a rifle hacked to fire fully automatic from a 'suveren citizen' anti-goverment type but it was so shoddy and unreliable that it jammed so he used rifles with bump-stocks. that"s fine. never said that was impossible. i realize you are looking for any nit-picky thing you can to somehow prove that i am 'wrong' even after it has been established that bump-stocks were used.

He was a nocturnal creature who gambled all night and slept all day.
He took Valium at times for anxiousness, and had the doctor who prescribed it to him on retainer.
He wagered up to a million dollars a night, but wandered around glitzy Las Vegas casinos in sweatpants and flip-flops, and carried his own drink into the high rollers' area because he didn't want to tip the waitresses too much.